Fake Girlfriend

I sat on Lex’s bed with John as we waited for him to find his paintball equipment in his mess of a closet. I kept my paintball stuff at Lex’s, and John had never done it before, so we all drove to Lex’s house to get what we needed. Now, something you need to know about Lex is that he is a paintball god. No can get a shot on him. And so, he had everything anyone would need for paintball… Now, if only he could find it.

His room was small and cramped, and he shared it with the oldest of his three little brothers, Francisco. And neither of them seemed to care about tidiness at all. And that’s saying something coming from a guy with a pretty messy room himself.

“Find it yet?” I asked him.

He grumbled in frustration. “No. I’m going to ask my mom real quick.”

He walked out of the room to the kitchen, where I could hear him begin to speak in Spanish to his mother. I may have been in Spanish 3 at the time, but they were talking too fast for me to understand, had I not known what Lex was asking for.

I could see in the corner of my eye John giving me a confused look. He probably didn’t notice that Lex was Mexican. After all, the only time he spoke (or even sounded like he was) Spanish was at his house around his family, and the only people who called him ‘Alejandro’ were the people at the shop. Both him and his mother had lighter skin, so they didn’t look too Spanish. His brothers, however, all inherited their father’s dark skin, so it was easier to notice.

As if on cue, the two littler brothers, Lucian and Gabriel, peeked their heads into Lex’s room to look at us, with grins eerily similar to Lex’s own. They faces lit up even more when they saw me, and they immediately tackled me. John laughed slightly as the younger one at six-years-old, Lucian, was practically now sitting on my face, as I lay on my back on Lex’s bed.

“Cole!” Lucian said. “Come play with us!”

I was laughing, too. “Get off my face first,” I said.

Lucian did so, and Gabriel stared from where he was with his wide, curious eyes. Lucian was loud like his brother, but Gabriel wasn’t so, but he looked a lot more like Lex than the other brothers. He was also two years older—and wiser—than his little brother. “Will you play with us?” Gabriel asked.

I smiled. “Sorry, you two, but I can’t right now.”

They pouted. I swear, they were mini Lexs.

“Fooound them!” Lex chirped, reentering with a rather large box. His voice was tinted with a bit of a Spanish accent, left after trying to transition back to English.

The two little brothers began jumping up and down. “Ooh! Paintball! We wanna come!” Lucian said.

Lex stuck his tongue out at them. “You’re too young,” he teased. “This is for mature guys.” Again, they pouted.

“And you’re mature?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Indeed,” he answered, standing up straight and puffing his chest out. He squatted down to be eye to eye with his little brothers. “Maybe another time, ‘kay?” he said.

They stopped pouting and smiled. “Okay!” they exclaimed, and they bounced out of the room.

Just before we were ready to leave, Francisco came in with his usual grim expression. When he saw all of us, he frowned just a tad, but I had learned not to take it seriously. Franky had been like this for almost three years now, just after… well, just after their brother Robbie died in a car accident. He was a year younger than Lex and a year older than Robbie. And it was hardest on them when he died.

I used to hang out with Lex and Rob a lot, and so it hit me pretty hard, too, when he died. But I would have to double that by tenfold before it could compare to the way Lex and Franky felt. However, whereas Lex reverted to his usual humor and good thoughts, Franky spiraled in some kind of depression—mix that with teen angst, and you’ve got yourself a mess.

Lex smiled at his brother, despite his lack of enthusiasm. “Hey, Frankers,” he said, using the nickname he used for Franky since as long as I could remember being friends with him. “We were just going to go out for some paintball. Wanna come?”

“No,” was Franky’s simple reply.

Lex shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. The three of us grabbed our stuff and walked out.

As soon as we were out in the hall, I noticed Lex’s shoulders slump. He wouldn’t outright say it, but he was pretty worried about Franky. It had been almost three years; the accuse “he’ll get over it” didn’t work anymore. I mean, besides his smoking habit, Lex had pretty much averted back to his old self, but Franky never changed. Truthfully, I was concerned, too.

I clasped my friend on the shoulder, and he sighed.

***

When we got out of the car in the parking lot at the paintball place, I noticed how quiet John had been. He had been off in his own little world on the trip there, and at Lex’s house, he hadn’t barely said a word. Seriously, what was up with this guy?

I slapped him in the back of his head. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked, not too harshly.

He blinked. “Nothing.”

I sighed. “If it’s about me and Thisbe, I promise I—“

“No, it’s not that. I sort of already believe you’re telling the truth about your guys relationship.” Well, that made me feel guilty, considering I wasn't exactly telling him the truth about our relationship. “It’s something else.”

“Ah, so there is something bothering you,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“If it’s not about Thisbe and me, then… Is it about Delilah?”

He frowned. “Yeah.” His hand were a little shaky.

“Well, what’s up? You can tell me.”

He looked at the others, who were already walking up to the entrance, probably to make sure they couldn’t hear. He looked at me, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I-I think I might b…b-break up with her,” he said.

I gave him a confused look. He and Delilah were always around each other, and John seemed to see no one but her. I couldn’t see a reason why he’d want to break up with her, and it caught me a bit by surprise. “Why?” I asked.

He took another look at the other guys, and then mumbled in my ear.

I blinked in surprise and open my mouth to say something.

“Yo, Cole! John!” Duncan called, interrupting me. “You coming or what?”

I gave John another look of surprise, but called back. “Yeah! We’re coming!” I looked at John and frowned. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll worry about it later.”

***

Lex and I showed John how to shoot, and told him the rules of the game, but it already seemed this wouldn’t be his niche; and so, all of us just told him to stick with Lex and try not to get shot. That was probably the best advice we could give the guy.

I had to say, Lex looked pretty intimidating in his paintball get-up. This was also the only time he ever looked serious. Add in his red hair and multiple piercings and the multiple paintball weapons hung from a loose belt on his waist, and the dude was the scariest paintballer alive.

The paintball field was at the edge of a forest, with barrels, tires, and old pieces of trucks littered for shields. I could see the team captain of the other side, along with Lex—our captain—waiting for the referee to begin the game. Finally, he called out if we were ready, and both captains waved. The game began.

I shot someone out almost immediately, which made me pretty proud, and Lex just missed the other team captain. I looked at John who was hiding behind a pile of tires with me and sighed. The guy was deep in thought again. This whole Delilah thing was getting to him. Which was understandable, but not in the middle of a paintball game.

I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hey, you looking to get shot?”

He shook his head.

“Then, focus, alright?”

He nodded, and said nothing.

I lost track of Sam and Duncan, but they were probably up to their usual strategy of trying to sneak over onto their side and get easy snipe shots. It worked sometimes, but when I heard Duncan calling “Deadman! Deadman!” then saw him with his gun over his head walking off the field, I knew someone had found him, and Sam was probably close to being found too.

Lex was currently dueling it out with the other team captain. Kyle and I were working on the other team members, and John got in a few shots too, but for the most part just stayed out of the way. Eventually, Kyle got shot, aswell two players from their team. Moments later, I heard Sam and another guy from the other team calling “Deadman!” from the distance. And while I was trying to get to another barrel boundary, I got shot.

I swore. Those pellet things sting. I placed my gun over my head, and as I left, I noticed the guy who shot me now had a yellow paint splatter on the front of his chest. I looked over at John, who had a growing smile of accomplishment growing on his face. I shot him a thumbs up before joining everyone else outside the field’s boundaries.

All that was left was their team captain, and we would win; Lex was desperately working to obtain that, but I was surprised at how well the other team captain was avoiding his shots. Eventually, Lex became desperate enough to take a paint grenade from his belt and chucked it at just the right moment, but the captain jumped out of the way.

However, it seemed the captain slipped up, and gave Lex the perfect opening. He took a step forward to shoot, but something seemed wrong and he looked down at his foot. I squinted from where I was standing, and noticed something on the ground. I heard Lex swear loudly as I saw a paint splatter come up from where his foot was. I chuckled slightly at the cleverness. Paint mine.

Everyone was so intent, including the team captain, about this clever move, that no one saw John behind the pile of tires he had been at since the game began, peek out and shoot a few shots—eyes closed. By blind luck (literally), the shot hit the captain in the shoulder. They both looked pretty surprised at the shot.

I heard Lex laughing. “Nice one, Johnny-boy!” he said.

While the rest of us guys had been out, we had been talking to the other team, and they turned out to be a nice group of people; and so, we all agree to meet up at the little burger joint across the street when we had cleaned up a little and put away all our stuff.

When Lex came up to us, he was still laughing, arm around John. “Seriously, I could get even one hit on that guy, and John just effing snipes him? I’d feel embarrassed if it wasn’t so funny,” he said. John was laughing a bit himself, which was good.

We walked out to our cars and just threw all our stuff in the back of Sam’s van. We were all too hungry to care about our splatter-painted clothes—not like we had thought to bring extra clothes, anyways. We all ran across the street to the burger joint where we saw a group of people. It was hard to tell if it was the team we faced, but it must have been because I noticed some paint splatters on them, too.

Lex’s jaw nearly dropped when he saw the one with the paint blob on their shoulder. It was a girl. A rather good-looking girl, at that. Duncan snickered and nudged by friend in the side. “Dude, you got beat by a girl.” But, I don’t think Lex even heard him. I cocked my eyebrow. I knew that look.

She sauntered up to Lex, with an extend hand. “You were the other team captain, right?” Lex nodded, words not forming in his mouth. I was holding back a chuckle. I definitely knew that look. “Nice to meet you, I’m Stella.”

He shook Stella’s hand, and he was practically drooling.